pleased with the state of my com... slowly but surely, i'm reclaiming space on my hard drive and external hard drive, backing up data... haha. com's getting faster and i like my skin :)

COE bidding for e car was successful! yay... so if all goes well, i'd be able to get a car sometime next week... exciting. its gonna be manual though cuz my mum wanted me to get a manual one, said tt so i wun forget how to drive manual and cuz she thinks i'd be in better control of e car.. pls no traffic jams though! :)

watched MI3 on wed... hmmm, thrash film, but well, i've a think for cool gadgets and fast cars, so it was fun anyways. lol... then, on sunday, watched The Child, a french film, which me and cm concluded, isn't contrived. which probably explained the slightly dull plot.. but i guess, what it lacks in plot, it made up in heart felt acting and a generally well produced film. i got to gobble down a hotdog in abt 2 mins, cuz e picture house doesn't allow food due to the 6000 dollar seats it is furbished with, though oddly, there are cup holdlers between the 'designer suede' seats. haha, the display near the elevators describing the seats and their origin was mildly entertaining. but really, i could get a sofa set for yr seat.

oh, went kboxing, and the interface has changed... looks great, and i like e feature of grouping songs by english singers now (they always had tt for chinese songs)..

had dinner with the dean.. well, he talked quite a bit, and i must say, it was kinda interesting. some of the points he made, which he told e pple there to share:

1] it is impt to network. that is the benefit you have of studying in sg.. you'd be able to know more doctors in the hospitals next time, thus more pple to consult, or ask for help. he actually said we should be on phone basis with 90% of our batch by M5.. haha, dun think so. know 50% of the batch above and below.

2] our facilities are old and dated. the structures are built in 1978, meant for 100+ students only. and he was telling us abt translational medicine. basically it is the development of new drugs, and testing on patients. being as compact as we are, there is a good chance we can cut down testing time compared to overseas (though i doubt out capabilities :x) so our library will be demolished end of the year, replaced with an 11 storey building by 2009 hopefully...

3] weaker students.. he was trying to find out why there are pple struggling, since he thinks tt the intake was more or less equal, and that he could easily have replaced us with other candidates. he said tt there are pple who are always doing badly year after year, and said tt he feels tt perhaps they aren't suited for medicine, and he hates to see talent, that they may have elsewhere go to waste by being stuck in med sch. so he said we should encourage them to quit.

4] he had lots more to say, but yeah, tt was the gist i guess.. he also said we should attempt to feel like doctors, not students.

5] oh yeah, singapore is infamous in the medical and scientific world for the first case of lab contracted SARS. maybe tt should dispell the illusion our government would have us believe- tt we are so advanced technoligically.

here's my take.. intitally, i felt disgusted tt he should ask us to encourage our peers to quit. but after some thought, i guess it is only responsible. i mean, after you graduate, you do become a doctor, and there are pple's lifes in your hands. and if you aren't competent, then you should quit on yr own accord, or perhaps, you have to be encouraged to, and not be selfish abt it. certainly, easier said then done, but in the face of a deficient selection process imposed by the medical sch (come on, we all know it), perhaps we need self filtering now.

i know tt i am, perhaps not a person in a good position to do this, but i would like to critise our healthcare system. i think tt faced with a shortage of doctors, the medical board is possibly, flippantly giving degrees to more pple than they should. not tt i have anything against tt should pple be more competent. but being in the hospitals, as a student, as well as, when my dad was a patient, i can tell you tt the lack of standard is appalling.

there was a houseman who couldn't tell you what u would encounter upon making an incision on yr neck. mind you, it wasn't at any specific point on the neck, just neck in general. i will not go into the details of my dad's case. but whatever it is, the doctors now adays are irresponsible and INCOMPETENT.

if u think our med soc president is bullshitting us, please, think again. would you really feel confident in yr degree if you are not competent? tt his critisms of the system would undermine your degree? or do you think it is worth it to examine the problems at hand, and at least be able to feel confident of your abilities.